Apple has reportedly begun researching how the iPhone and Apple Watch can be used to passively gather data from patients suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.
While many people are appalled by the idea that modern smartphones can track sophisticated metrics about their user – such as their heart rate, location, or data consumption, for example – Apple is actively expanding its product range to provide sophisticated health tracking. To that end, a new report suggests the company is investigating how the iPhone or Apple Watch could passively monitor a patient with Parkinson’s Disease.
Parkinson’s Disease is a disease of the nervous system, which usually manifests in the form of a tremor or muscular rigidity. Patients with the disease are usually elderly or are in their middle-age, and often see their doctors every six months.
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Apple hopes to provide a solution in which its products can monitor patients during that interval, and to that end has bolstered its ResearchKit team with a suite of well-known researchers and doctors.
Apple appointed Stephen Friend, president of Sage Bionetworks, as head of research in June; Friend (and Sage, by extension) have long been ResearchKit partners and are the hands behind the Parkinson mPower app, which lets patients participate in what is termed as the ‘largest and most comprehensive’ study on the disease.
With Friend’s assistance, Apple has been reported to be actively investigating how passive monitoring techniques could not only assist patients with Parkinson’s Disease monitor their symptoms, but could also actively contribute to ongoing research on the causes and management of the disease as a whole.
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What are your thoughts? Could mobile technology be harnessed to provide insights into other diseases or ailments, or is the invasion of one’s privacy too great? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA
Source: MacRumors
